panda express
by Q u e e n V a m p
Summary: She should have known where this night was going when Cam told her to wear shoes she could run in. pre-"what about the moon"


**prompt—bank jobs are best done with friends**

******Rating:** T  
**Genre:** Adventure, Crack, Hurt/Comfort-themes******  
Fandom: **_Young Justice_******  
Couple: **Artemis/Cameron, Article Jr., Frostbite, CamArt******  
Inspiration**: my other fic "what about the moon" and crack and feels

This is a new series. The: "Anything that can go wrong, can and will go wrong" series, but everything ok later. Maybe.

**AU before "what about the moon" and after Artemis tells the gang about her family. **

* * *

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Her night starts normally enough. She's home, dinner is set to a boil, homework is on the table, her mother is taking a power nap in her room and everything is tranquil and perfect and quiet. Until her phone rings.

It's one of those obscenely annoying tones meant to shatter perfect silences like this on a dime. Only the fact was Artemis did not remember setting her phone as such, so she slumped there for a moment, watching her phone drum out the beat to _Ice Ice Baby _and clatter loudly against the counter.

Finally, she answers, "Hello?"

"Hey! Tiger, how areth thou!?" Cameron exclaims from the other end. There's traffic behind him, ringing like static you get from an unavailable TV channel.

It takes her three seconds to remember she's mad at him. "I'm hanging up."

His voice backpedals like he just flew into rush hour traffic, frantic. "Whoa, whoa, _whoa—_can you hear me out for a sec?"

"I don't see why I should," she mutters and thumbs at the pages of her textbook, feeling a rush of power for making him act this way. "This is your—what?—second time calling me after you got back from Moscow?"

"You were angry the first time," Cameron reasons as he reasons a lot of things, like smooth ice laid out to trip someone in the winter months. It was a trap she often fell for because—_hey_—they grew up together and as insightful as she could be, she still saw Cam as the boy who just needed a friend. Like her. "I decided to give you your space and try again."

"Uh-huh, why is my phone playing ringtones I don't remember buying?"

He pauses for a moment. "That's Eric's fault."

There's a loud crunching in the background and a shrilling masculine voice echoed off by the sound of several car horns. The line is suddenly muffled—she suspects by Cameron's palm—but she is still able to make out a distinct _"get back in the car, you asshat" _before Cameron comes back.

"Entirely Eric. Our wonderful, convoluted yet _lovable _friend Eric."

Artemis raises her brows and shuts her Geometry book with a thud. Electing to ignore Eric. "I'm still waiting for the reason you called." She warns and looks back at her soup that's beginning to bubble. "I've already given you a minute."

"Look—okay—do you want to hang out tonight?"

She pauses her finger drumming across the table, the beat following through to her pulse. It's tearing her in two already with each word—however nice—like teeth. Yes, she's spoken to Cameron since she joined the League, once for a mission twice for her own devices, but seeing him was a different thing entirely. She could hide herself behind a phone, or behind a thick panel of glass, but without those she didn't know if she could trust herself not to do something she might regret.

"It's a school night." It sounds stupid the moment it leaves her mouth.

"Your school lets out early for a staff meeting tomorrow—I'm sure you could miss one day." Cameron informs her curtly like she should be proud he was snooping around her life for things he could warp to his advantage. There's silence. "Okay, I can literally _feel _you seething right now—"

"Why do you even want to hang out? I thought I was _dead _to you now." She growls, recalling an old conversation from months back. Before the Moscow call but just a little after he started his time in Belle Reve when she went to go see him—to apologize—and he very angrily glared at her through a swollen shut eye and told her what he thought of her new life. His words were slurred through the phone, so hurt and betrayed.

He said a lot of things, a lot of ugly things and it all ended with him telling her to leave.

But he still admitted to missing her, and called her up at three a.m. months later to say he was going to Moscow and he was scared of breaking parole and going back, but he had family with him—(in their life, the word _family _stretched beyond that of blood relation, family were the people who patched you up after a nasty fall and hid you from the police when they came knocking)—and that he was going to be okay and she shouldn't worry. She started crying and the awkward moments later past like heartbeats. She couldn't remember hanging up.

She did worry for weeks afterward. She worried the phone call would be traced. She worried people may start asking her if she knew where the young villain went. She worried Oliver might ask the wrong question. She worried Dinah would catch up on her worry. And she worried the idiot would offend the wrong person and get shot without her there to translate his well-meaning statements.

She worried a lot about him. About everything.

Though now that he was back with all his toes and still in one piece, she could shove aside the withering worry for even more withering anger.

"Do you want the answer to that? Because I guarantee you know it." Cameron's voice is like high altitude on a mountain top when he spoke like this to her, and only ever to her, she realized.

There's a bright cheerfulness behind his words, each syllable like a potent shove into her own subconscious like he knew exactly what she was thinking the moment she thought it—like he knew where she stored away forbidden feelings of regret and anger—but then there was the meaning behind the words. It was like a foreboding, like his prolific words were dangerous even to him, even if he didn't understand. He would strangle them both with the lack of oxygen just to say something stupid.

"Shut up," she snarls into the phone because it's easier and she snaps off the burner in the same breath. Cradling the phone between her face and shoulder, she huffily stirred her soup. Exhaling Cameron from her system usually took much more effort though.

"Just come down stairs, I want to talk to you and know you're not going to severe the life line."

"Don't be so dramatic," she groans.

"Well, the devil may cry," he rasps and there's a scuffle behind him, intertwining with the music of traffic; an ambulance races by and the noise echoes from out her window. She stiffens. "Seriously though, will you meet me?"

"I dunno," she says skeptically and inches towards the window and curling back the blinds to glance at the street below. "You sound far away." Cameron huffs.

"I can be at your house in a few." His voice is musical like he knows he's winning her over and translates to the white-topped figure on the grimy streets three-stories down—he spins on his heel towards a huge black van.

"Really—is that your car?"

"No, it's—" Cameron jars, pauses, and clears his throat. "Hi," he waves to, what he assumes correctly to be, her window and she pulls the blinds up and cracks the window. Phone forgotten still half way pressed to her ear. "Hey, Juliet!" he calls and she remembers his weird greeting from before.

"If you were Romeo I would throw rocks at you!" she shouts down at him—it's seems more economical to shout, but still doesn't hang up—and entertains the thought of grabbing her bow, before remember that that was considered _illegal. _Then again, whenever Cam was around all things criminal caught wind in the fire he set and the smoke billowed through her subconscious, impairing her to fall back on instinct. There was also that unhinging annoyance he brought upon her since puberty.

"Will thou come down?" he asks.

"Give me a reason to." She shouts back and leans against the frame. Homework wasn't looking too good anyway.

"I've got a car and a tank full of gas and I want to talk to you."

She really shouldn't. She really, really shouldn't. Batman would find out—this is his city—and if not him Robin was _bound _to find out. And then everyone would know. It was consequences of something she often entertained, but the pressing thumbs of always behind watched were beginning to wear with her new-found security in the Team with entrusting her true identity.

It was a leap of faith, giving control over to someone else and building yourself up for their reaction.

"Really, really shouldn't," she mutters to herself and mentally maps out where her mother keeps legal pads of paper and pens so she could leave a note. "I'll be right down!" she calls and doesn't miss the wide smile breaking across Cameron's face.

"Oka—cool! Hey, bring a pair of shoes you can run in, kay? See you in a few."

And then he hangs up.

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She forgets entirely that _this _is Cameron. And when she's meeting Cameron _something _always happens.

"Eric?" she asks but it sounds more like an accusation halfway out her mouth and the slumbering twenty-six year old grins merrily in his stupor.

"That's meeeeee!"

They're standing at the driver's side of the black van with the door swung open to reveal Eric—their loving and annoying Black Spider—imagining that he was in some grand car chase that involved him making all the break and engine noises while shouting profanities.

Cameron is, thankfully, holding the keys in a grip similar to rigor mortis.

He's standing too close to her, she could feel the chill brushing off his skin and the coil of his muscles under his clothes. He was ready to jump—run—at any moment.

Artemis gives Cameron and aghast expression. "Is he drunk? Are _you _drunk?" She gives him no time to answer the former question since she had seen Eric drunk before, many times in fact, most worse than this. "_Cam_."

"I," he says proudly, pressing his hand to his heart like what laid beneath was fragile. "Am _not _drunk. I am merely tipsy, my dear Artemis, off of affection and love for my dear friends. I am sober for the fact that I must drive this hunk of metal around for poor Eric here's—" He pats Eric's five o' clock shadowed cheek with a tad too much force. "—drunken benefit."

"Why?" Her brows arch higher than they ever have.

"She left meeeeee." Eric sobs grossly into the steering wheel and his face slides inward to the circle and downward so that he could gnaw on the frayed leather interior.

Cameron smiles at her like it was a bandage he could quickly patch with just that, "Jade dumped him in her, ya know, special way."

Artemis prickles instantly with both a deep understand and a warring instinct to protect her sister's (good?) reputation. "No, I don't know how Jade dumps people." She quips and lets her voice do the rest. Cameron backs off the subject, hands upturned in surrender and silent apology, but the damage is already done for Eric.

"Jahahahahaid!" he crows with more syllables and letters than her sister's name actually has. He proceeded then to bash his head onto the steering wheel, sending out a Morose code of honks into to early evening traffic.

Cameron's eyes plead with hers. "Just help me get him home and we can talk?"

Why does she agree?

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There are many types of drunks. Angry drunks, sad drugs, happy drunks, sexy drunks, but Eric—as always—is an exceptional all of the above along with one tiny detail. He was a narcoleptic drunk.

He could fall asleep at the drop of a hat and slur back his words, waking up seconds to hours later to either complete his last sentence or karate chop Jackie Chan for stealing his Elvis alarm clock. This has happened an exceptional amount of times.

This time was the former, "Jj-hayed-hayed-hayed—DA!"

"Believe me, Eric—I _know_." Artemis sympathizes.

"Alright, c'mon, buddy." Cameron bodily drags Eric off the driver's side chair and onto the pavement, Artemis is quick to catch him and the odd five-legged race begins as the round the edge of the van.

"She was the love of my life!" Eric sniffles drunkenly onto Artemis's shoulder. She turns her nose up and he nudges away.

"Eric, you've been dating for a week." Cameron reminds.

"But I've known her longer!" Eric verifies and suddenly he's heavier, with his uni-leg starting to kick to life into separate units and try to push himself up to his towering lean height. He manages a few dramatic inches towards Cameron's face before he stumbles back onto Artemis. "You know how it is—known her since we were kids, first crush, first love, for always and forever—_c'mon man. _There's, like, twenty bazillion songs about it. That's what you've been whining about for the last four months!"

They titter to a halt trying to right Eric once again, but he tumbles back into sleep before he could say anything else. Cameron's eyes meet hers over Eric's blonde head resting below his chin. They were blue, oh so wonderfully blue and open and pleading for her to listening to him _please. _Artemis grips Eric's arm.

Cameron's voice, however, is drowned out by the dull roar of something coming from the back of the van.

"What was that?" she asks and Cameron starts to panic.

"Nothi—ow!" Eric head-butts him in the chin, revived and screaming about no good commercial karate masters and throwing himself onto the offending cyrokentic.

Artemis takes this chance to peak in through the blacked out windows and then slowly open the van's back door, only to slam it shut a second later. More roars echo from inside the van mirroring Cameron's pained yelps.

"What the hell!?"

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"Now before you get mad—"

"I'm not mad."

Cameron looks comforted for a second before the panic settles back. "You're mad."

She wants to smack him but Eric already did that and then some. "No shit Sherlock."

He stares at her.

"You're swearing."

". . ."

"You're _really _mad."

"Are you drunk!?" she repeats and Cameron shuffles his feet.

"Well . . ."

"You're an _idiot._"

"Why do I have to be drunk to do something crazy!?"

"Because you stole a—"

"Tiger—"

"No!" Eric shouts, suddenly resurrected, supporting a huge boozy smile and an ice burn shaped like a fist on his face. His hands shake as he grips the van's double back doors and yanks them open with the strength it would take Conner to tear them off the hinges. "Dot is a panda!" He embraces the large furry bear like a teddy and Artemis wonders how Eric is not yet in jail.

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In the three seconds since Artemis met Dot, she reasons the Dot is a very intellectual and free loving panda. Because if Artemis was a panda stolen by Cameron and Eric, she sure as hell would have bear-slapped Eric in the face and run at the first chance of freedom she got.

But now, you see, Artemis had to run after said runaway panda and, therefore, their future relationship looked anything but sunny.

Eric walloped back from the bear-slap like a champ and lunges out of the van like a bat out of hell, screaming, "Dotty come back!" proceeding after him. Cameron follows and she trails after, legs and arms pumping to match their break neck pace.

"Where did you get the panda from!?" she shouts and Cameron gives her a look like _seriously? _but knew better than to ignore her.

"The zoo. We broke into the zoo! It was supposed to be a stupid thing to get Eric's mind off Jade! I was trying to help!" He almost made it sound like some big misunderstanding.

"Why didn't you just take him to a bar or a stripe joint like a _normal _person!?" She shouts as they dodge cars. They shriek past her with breaks and horns, all skidding way too close for comfort. She's spent so much time up in the air, jumping from building to building, she's a bit rusty with car parkour. Cameron picks up her pace like he always did.

He makes a gesture—a frustrated fling of his arms—and ice skirts out from around him, snaking across the ground and swinging the cars out of their path. Artemis lunges out of the way before the backend of a cab could clip her as it swung into a Mustang. They're boxed in by six angry drivers.

Cameron catches her wrist before she could slip, frozen for a second as he gives her a once over—deeming her okay, he lets go. They climb over a car with a shouting passenger to the other side of the street.

"Tiger, we are _far _from normal." She glares. "Besides, Eric wanted to go to the zoo and it was closed. I barely got to sit at the bar, and they wouldn't let me in the stripe joint. I lost my fake ID and my birthday isn't for two months."

They hurtle their way through downtown.

"So, you stole a panda!?"

"Eric did! All I knew was that it was suddenly in the car—I swear!"

"Doottttttttty!" Eric croons as they inch their way into step with him, eyes fixing on the black and white shape running ahead of them.

"We need to catch him before the police do!" Cameron shouts.

"Police? Run Dotty, run!" Eric screams. "And keep running!"

Artemis feels tempted to trip him.

"Can't you—I don't know—encase him in ice or something?"

"_She._" Eric insists.

"Not without killing him." Cameron retorts and lunges over a bench to keep running. "Or possible brain damage." Artemis glares. "There were some accidents in Moscow!"

"_She._" Eric insists again.

"Eric a girl doesn't have—" For the first time that night Artemis was grateful for whatever inane thing Eric was about to shout about next.

"Like you would know, Mahkent!"

Cameron blushes all the way down his neck.

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They finally catch up with Dot the panda he-she, at the park where it had happily stopped to gnaw on a snack of bamboo reeds being used for the new Chinese garden exhibit. Suddenly as tame as a puppy, Cameron wheezes that they should watch the bear and he would be back with the car to load up the panda and think out their next move.

As she sits there in the park she wonders how she became involved in this nonsense.

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"He loves you, ya know." Eric mutters to the stars and the city smog above. Dot nuzzles lovingly at his clothes and tears away strips of his shirt. Artemis ignores him and tries to wrestle the clothing away because endangered panda? Not exactly sure should be eating ripped clothes.

The panda wins anyway by snappily showing his teeth and batting at Artemis's leg.

She stumbles to the ground, glaring at the happily chewing panda. "I hope the tigers eat you." She growls and the bear shows its teeth again in a parody of a smile.

"I said he loves you!"

"No he doesn't," she draws her knees up. "Stupid bear is trying to kill me."

"_She_!" Eric croons and cuddles closer to his companion. "Dot is a _she_!"

Artemis stares at him.

"And of course she doesn't like you. Cameron does, actually. He likes you a lot. A lot, a lot." Eric presses his face into the panda's fur. "You're all he talks about, you know. He's proud of you."

Her cheeks burn at the comment but they're blurred out by the red and blue strobe lights flashing around them.

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She doesn't know how, but she manages to coax Dot into a run and Eric manages to stay awake for five seconds as they flee into the tree line of the park, starling more than a few homeless and thieves caught in the act. The squad car is lost in the darkness, but Artemis can imagine the radio static and several more cars ripping around the corner after them.

She doesn't think about those though—she just keeps running.

Until Eric trips—all stealth gone—and lands in the remains of an old tire. Dot stops beside him, nudging him and making panda noises.

"Oh my _God,_" She groans and considers leaving him but then Dot sits beside him, head tilting curiously and crowing. She grabs fistfuls of Eric's sweater and heaves, managing to lift him a few inches off the ground before he slumps back. "Eric, you useless lump!"

"That's what she called me," he whines.

"Get up!"

"I cannot, my legs were crippled by the wings of love."

"Eric!"

"I cannot move! Dot, carry me!"

The panda obvious didn't understand.

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.

There's snapping in trees around them—police, homeless hungry people—and Artemis slumps low. She doesn't have any of her weapons with her. The customary dagger she carried in her boot at one time lay forlorn in her desk drawer like a bad dream and her crossbow sat in the back of her closet. "Eric, where's your knife?"

She turns out his pockets and feels down his legs for his left boot, pulling out a knife similar to the one she had. They were their graduation gift for completely basic training, Jade and Cameron had similar ones. She grips the handle and feels safer with a weapon.

Finally, someone breaks the tree line and Dot screams.

It's another guy, more than half Artemis's height. He's wiry built and dressed in a worn sweater. He doesn't have a weapon pulled—yet—but Artemis got her fair share of street fights to know better.

"Hey, pretty girl," he grins.

She doesn't say anything and he takes a step towards her.

Fighting was easy; she manages to catch the drop on him quickly enough. She kicks his feet out from underneath him and lands a blow to his stomach to knock the wind out of him. Artemis steps away from him as he wheezes and pulls her knife where he can see it.

"I don't want to hurt you—"

He rolls up and pulls a gun from his pocket.

There's the sound of cracking and ice encases the boy's arm, weapon to shoulder. He has a moment to look surprised before a tidal wave more of solid ice is thrown at him and wraps around him like a blanket pinning him to the ground a few yards from Dot.

Artemis glances back to the tree opening to see Cameron. His arms are covered in ice heavily to his shoulders and misting across his neck and sharpening his cheekbones. She remembers a time where he had to ice up entirely just to make a he only needs his arms accessible to build an attack of ice._ He's getting stronger, he's growing._

"Well, you learnt something in Moscow."

"I let myself go too much," he says and the ice recedes back into his chilly skin, twisting a shiver up his spine, he scoffs. "Brought a gun to a knife fight." There's still an infuriated haze misting off his skin like the ice could form again if he needed it to. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she breathes, fingers grazing the edges of the knife in her palm and lets the blade bite into her skin. "I'm fine."

"You're not going to yell at me for helping?"

"Gun. Knife. Not liking my odds."

Cameron makes a noise and bends to pull up Eric. "I parked the car over here." She herds Dot after them.

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"Hey, this isn't the way to my apartment." Eric says gazing blearily out the window as the apartments thin and business blossom along the sides of the streets.

Artemis shoots Cam a look and they silently war with each other on who would tell him. Cameron sighs, "Eric, we need to take Dot back to the zoo . . ."

The rest of the ride was filled with screams—both Eric and Dot—until Eric finally shut up with his head meeting the glass window after Artemis's friendly nudge. Then there was silence once again and Dot went on to chew Eric's hair.

"Was that—?"

"It was necessary."

"Okay."

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She gets a call from her mom, which is flippin' _perfect _right now.

"Artemis, where are you? It's late." He mother quips into the phone and Artemis checks the clock radio on the dash, before groaning. "Artemis." Her accent is thick, like it always is when she's angry. She's breaking apart her name bit by bit making it sound like _At-tam-miss._

"Mom, I got called in. There was an—_emergency—_at the zoo."

Cameron snorts in the seat beside her and mutters, "This should be good." As Artemis spins a wild tale for her mother.

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.

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And her mother believes her—sort of, she's off the hook for now and that's what's important.

Artemis works on rubbing her temples when her phone finally rests in the cup holder instead of her ear and shoulder press. She had had to use once Dot started making noise in the background and she had to manually press the bear's maw closed.

"You could have at least said _bears_ instead of _electric eels_. Sheesh, use what you got." Cameron remarks and Artemis elbows him.

"Just watch the road—and you've better have not been drinking."

"I haven't," Cameron clips equally annoyed with the situation. "I haven't drunk at all. I'm drunk off thrills and high off life, as usual. I need to be stone cold sober to play off my sparkling personality."

Artemis snorts and forces her gaze out the window, gnawing on a chipped nail.

"You hate that sort of thing too, right?" She spits a crescent from her mouth and continues chewing to even out the broken edges of her thumbnail. Cameron is as unaffected as the words that leave his mouth affect her.

"Just watch the road." She repeats and turns up the radio.

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Gotham City zoo looks like any other building in Gotham—like a graveyard.

From the high arching iron bars to the flagstone walkways, the place looked more like an exotic pet cemetery than a place for living creatures. There were event stone replicas of the animals outside each exhibit that, despite best efforts, looked like poor creatures caught in Medusa's gaze.

"I've always hated it here." She says.

"Yeah, Eric hated it too. C'mon Dotty." Cameron manipulates an ice staircase/slide for them to zip down in order to get such a big bear inside—which, in turn, took several tries because Dot was unafraid of everything but heights. Leaving Eric in the car was best, but Dot didn't seem to think so. He cried out for mama-Eric the entire way back to the exhibit. Waking other animals who turn on their motion lights as they get up to inspect the noise and call back.

"Which way?"

"That way."

". . . that's the way to the aquatic center." Artemis deadpans because sometimes Cameron is just an idiot.

"Well, go look at some eels." He snaps back and bodily nudges Dot in the other direction.

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.

.

There would be night guards.

They would have Tasers.

Artemis jumps back from their reach expertly as Cameron falls victim and Dot screams in bear language. Artemis uses that as her cover when she rolls forward, swiping Guard 1's feet out from under him and lunging up to knock Guard 2 into a very mournful looking capybara statue.

She whirls on her heel in time to elbow Guard 1 in the gut and then the nose for emphasis. He tumbles back into the fountain, breathing but bleeding.

She looks back to Cam who's smiling with electric light. "Good to see you haven't lost your touch." He grabs her offered hand in his frosty one.

"Thought I would?"

"Not for a second."

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"Where are we?"

"I don't—hey wait—" Artemis flickers on her cell phone light and a tiny rat face is illuminated back at her.

Nocturnal creature's exhibit.

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When they finally, finally, _finally _got back to panda enclosure they realize how Eric got the bear out through a series of red webbing strewing across the top muffed with white and black fur. Three more pandas stare at them curiously and make noises of greeting for Dot. "How are we going to get him back?"

"I could . . ." Cameron steps back, measuring the bear with his eyes and then the drop. He glances around the enclosure. "Through here."

The Bear House, as it was called, was a large and decorative octagon shaped building that sat in the center of the bear exhibit of the outdoor zoo. And it was locked with a key-pad.

She expected Cameron to ice over the door and smash it down like he had done few times before, but he did something different instead. Extending his hand, a fine frost covering his fingertips and he punched in an access code that buzzed them in. "How'd you know that?"

"The screen said it was a four digit code. When you press a button for the first time that's when you have the most oil on your fingers. The button 0 was worn off the most, so I worked my way back to which was still legible."

She smiles. "I feel like I should be worried."

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The manage to lock Dot back up in her enclosure with her family safely and the rest of the night fizzled out into a blur of running from more night watchmen and monkeying up the gate to get back to the car. Cameron stabs the keys in the ignition and they tear away from the curb and swerve into early morning traffic.

"Did you see his face when you jumped over him?" Cameron cackled once they were safely on the highway. Artemis grinned so hard she felt her face might break.

"Or when he slipped on that ice?"

"Priceless!"

"Yeah." She breathes, watching the sun come up from the front window like a giant eye hovering over them.

"Excellent work Miss Artemis." Cameron says in an official tone and nudges her. There was something desperate about the action, trying to keep her in this adrenaline buzzed mood. She nudges him back, smiling.

"Likewise Mister Mahkent."

"Sorry we really didn't get to talk." He drawls as he makes the necessary turns towards her apartment. "I made you run from the police on a panda heist all night."

"It's s'okay." She mumbles and really it didn't matter to her. This would probably be the highlight of her week even if she actually did get called in for a mission sometime. Eric dozes off his alcohol high to her right, still slumped against the window, and Cameron smiles on her left.

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After everything, she still demands to go to school.

"You're crazy, Crock." Cameron confirms, leaning against the hood of the van. In the full sunlight rising behind him, his hair looks orange and his skin tan. Alien compared to his true coloring. She blocks the glare coming off the car with her hand and shrugs.

"Gotta learn."

"Yeah, well, I'm going to get some sleep. Like a normal human being." He laughs and gestures back to Eric. "I'm just gonna let him crash at my place for a few days. Him and Jade were sharing an apartment, so awkward silence is insured."

She prickles again, annoyed that Cameron knows more about her sister and father than she does these days, but calms when she remembers that it could not be helped. They ran in the same circles anyway.

"I should go get ready . . ." she hints and takes a step back. Cameron's face wars between several expressions.

"Oh, yeah, alright—see ya later?"

"Sure," she mumbles but still isn't sure.

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She yawning as she runs through the courtyard, skidding to a halt at the fountain where Bette and her friends were waiting for her. "Hey—what happened to you?" Bette asks eyes wide and vaguely offended by her haggard appearance.

"Slept late." Artemis mutters still rubbing the sand out of her eyes. Her mother agreed with Cameron that she was crazy and ordered for her to lie down, but she was late enough already. "Can I copy someone's Econ homework?"

There's the general mumble of people saying they didn't do it or sure, and bags are opened and papers rifled through. Artemis feels like she could fall asleep right there.

Her phone buzzes in her skirt pocket.

Text from Unknown:

_Thx for last night tiger_

She grasps the phone in her hand and accepts someone's packet and starts digging through her own back to get her homework out. The phone buzzes again. It's a picture this time.

Dot chewing on bamboo leaves happily surrounded by his family in full daylight.

A text follows.

_Eric wanted to say goodbye._

"Ooh, who's that?" someone asks and Artemis chews her lip wondering how to answer. Cameron was her friend. _Was _her best friend and _was _her only companion for a long time. They had history and she moved on and felt proud for moving on. It was what she needed, at the time.

"Hey, did you hear some idiots stole a panda from the zoo last night, then _returned_ it?"

"Artemis where are you going?" Bette calls as she turns back towards the gate that's shutting to lock them all in.

"It's a half day anyway!" She shouts and narrowly makes it and hits the ground running for the bus stop.

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.

.

She goes the zoo and walks past cages, following her phantom memories of Gotham Zoo at nightfall back to the panda enclosure. Eric is leaning heavily against the visitor's fence two yards away from the actual cage and six yard more from an actual panda. "Dotty," he whispers brokenly and waves what looks to be a broken piece of the Chinese garden art bamboo toward the cage. He whistles.

She takes a seat at the bench beside Cameron. He looks at her for a moment, heavy bags under his eyes and pulls out his headphones but keeps up his hood to hide his snowy hair.

"Decided to join us crazies?" he grins.

"It was a half day."

They watch Eric try to lure Dot back to him as the people walk by slower and slower with the climbing sun. There's a nip in the air of the coming fall but Cameron looks unscathed by the cold as always, welcoming it where she's cursing her school uniform.

He eyes her bare knees like alien specimens and flicks a hazelnut at her.

"Do you always wear those skirts?"

"Sadly, yes. There's a winter uniform, the skirts' longer and thicker, but I still have to wear a skirt."

"Hmm, hope you're not planning to axel kick someone soon."

"I'm tempted," she says. "I'm surrounded by rich kids all day, every day, but some of them are pretty nice. It's a good school, I feel like I'm finally learning something."

"Dissin' the public education system already?" She pulls a face. "I'm _kidding. _I'm _glad _you're having fun at your new school. As long as you'll still play hookie with me every once and a while."

"Every once and a _great _while." She corrects.

There's silence again, Cameron picking apart her words and studying her face like he was getting ready for battle.

"So, do you want to do this again sometime? Without all the pandas or Eric?" Cam asks, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Artemis smiles.

"Sure, Frostbite."

They spend the rest of their Wednesday, nursing a sickly Eric and sitting under the shade trees by the panda enclosure. Their fingers locked together on the seat between them.

.

.

.

* * *

**Well this took two days and twenty pictures. I love this weather in mid-winter, makes me want to write.**

**As you can see, I war between Cameron being this undeniably good person and a total jerk like he can be in the show. SO, I make him a jerk because I love that flaw and I understands his reasons for being so. He's very prickly to me and I love that about him. I love flawed people too much. Way too much. **

**I'm writing the Moscow call next. Stalk me!**

**So, anyway how were all your New Year's Eves? I was stuck at home so I invited all my friends and went running through the streets in a dress. I'm still sick and my mom and I are still fighting so she locked herself in her room while the rest of us had fun. At five a.m. I had to drive the guys home and half the girls were asleep so I had my first meal of the year at IHOP surrounded by drunks and pancakes. It was glorious.**

**Happy New Year!**


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